South Africa aims for knockout win against Canada in World Cup match

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Blunder that threatened qualification and poor start against Mexico are in the past as date with Canada looms Hugo Broos, South Africa’s Belgian head coach, deserves a significant share of the credit for Bafana Bafana reaching the World Cup knockout stages for the first time in their rather chequered history. The country had been absent from the tournament since they hosted it in 2010 and participated only twice before that, in 1998 and 2002. A wave of unbridled excitement was triggered when Broos ended the long wait to qualify. “The question I always asked myself is: ‘Why is South Africa not a dominating country in Africa?’” Broos said in a recent radio interview. “When I came here, I had a plan. I kept the plan till the end, till the results were there, because I knew that was the way to do it.” Continue reading...

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This World Cup is already a landmark for South Africa, which had never advanced out of group play in its three previous trips to the sport's biggest stage. If Hugo Broos' team goes even farther when it faces co-host Canada on Sunday in the tournament's first knockout match, the Belgian coach is ready to call that something even bigger. “If we should succeed again to go through to the (next) round, I can say that should be a miracle for Bafana Bafana,” Broos said Saturday.